Bhopal, April 17 -- Police have booked the owner of a Hyderabad-based company for allegedly cheating farmers in Madhya Pradesh's Malwa region by supplying sub-standard vegetable seeds, including bitter gourd.

A First Information Report (FIR) was registered at the Manawar police station in Dhar on Friday following the intervention of Union agriculture and farmers welfare and rural development minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

The farmers alleged that in November 2025, they purchased seeds and saplings from various nurseries and agricultural service centres of a private company in Telangana's Hyderabad.

"Following sowing and transplantation, the bitter gourd crop failed to yield the expected production; instead, the fruits remained small, ...